Abstract
Quantitative NMR (qNMR) was successfully applied to determine the purities of commercial reagents of trichothecenes, deoxynivalenol (DON), 3-acetyl-DON (3-Ac-DON), 15-acetyl-DON (15-Ac-DON), nivalenol (NIV), T-2 toxin, which are widely used as the analytical standards for the quantitation. Since qNMR is based on the fact that the signal intensity of a given NMR resonance is directly proportional to the molar amount of that nucleus in the sample, the purities were calculated from the ratio of the proton signal intensities between the sample and 1,4-bis(trimethylsilyl)bezene-d4 (1,4-BTMSB-d4) which is developed as one of qNMR reference materials with traceability to the International System of Units (SI). As result, the metrological traceable purities of the reagent products were determined as 82.9-98.7% less than the labeled values by manufacturers. To our knowledge, this is first report to determine the metrological traceable purities of trichothecene reagent products. The purity test using qNMR will indirectly improve the reliability of the official analytical method and the quantitative values of trichothecenes in food.
